Monday, August 1, 2011

here i go again, back down the yellow brick road, AGAIN

this is day one of my trip down the yellow brick road. i am back at the same hospital where i received my treatment dose of I-131- my chemo, you could call it, as well as my whole body scan. not too much has changed from last year. i got checked in this morning at 7:30am. the hospital is an hour away from my house, so i had to get up at 5:30 and leave at 6:30 to make it. the rest of my appointments  begin at 8am, so i sure will not be sleeping in this week.

after i left admitting- i gave them a big chunk of my checkbook, and they gave me this neat plastic bracelet with my name on it, i went to the radiology waiting room. i knew that i would not be seeing the wizard, but i saw his two very nice assistants from last year. they went over a few things with me, about what would be happening when. i thought that i would be getting my scan done on wednesday,but that is not the case. actually, the tracer dose of I-131 is given to me on wednesday, and my scan is on friday, as is my blood work. the schedule, along with a few other details, were discussed, and the wizard's assistant told me that a nurse would be coming in to give me my first dose of thyrogen. the assistant laid out the thyrogen, as well as a pretty large syringe/needle that i was trying my best not to look at.

after a few minutes, the door opens and in comes a six foot three, burly male nurse! now, i know it should not matter one bit, but i guess i thought that i would be seeing one of the female nurses from last year. i think that i am a master at masking my feelings- my family tells me otherwise, and it must be true. the guy says, " yes, i am the nurse." i guess my mouth fell open or something- i just have to stop doing that. the first thing i thought of then, was well, thank goodness i wore my good pink underwear!

this is good information here: wear a skirt with an elastic waistband. that way, you can slip it down a little ( as well as your underwear) and will not have to flash any innocent people unnecessarily. i came up with this idea myself and it works pretty well. so i was "in position" and waiting for my injection. i was trying to " relax"- if you do not tense up your muscles, it hurts less. before i could actually do that, the nurse gave me the injection. i think that perhaps this man plays darts a lot. what an arm he has. the medicine itself stings for about 30 minutes, but i was sore all the way home. i felt every pot hole in the road,too. tomorrow, i get a thyrogen injection in the other side. i plan to take an ice pack to sit on for the ride home. i should have thought of that today.

before the nurse left, i asked," so, will you be here tomorrow?" he said that he  has the day off. yippee!! he said that i would be seeing kathy or sue tomorrow. i am pretty sure they are female. he also said that some of his worst  patients are other health professionals. do you think he could have possibly been talking about me?

4 comments:

  1. Sounds like you had an interesting and intense day. Ha Ha, I remember when I went to the ENT to talk about having my thyroid removed I had a scroll of questions, partly because I am a speech therapist so I knew exactly what nerves could be hit, as well as vocal chord damage that could be caused. I think sometimes as health professionals since we know what's going on we tend to have certain expectations and I think sometimes it makes the health professional that is working with us a little nervous. Hang in the Bea, I know these roads are tough. Just know we are all here for you in blogger world!!!

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  2. wow, good for you! Nice you'll have a female tomorrow. I never had any soreness from it so I'm wondering if he did it right! I went back to work right away (wasn't on the sucky diet) and had some minor dizziness but everything went great. Looking forward to hearing your good report!
    Just think, you can eat normally soon!!! woo-hoo!

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  3. haha, I was laughing all the way through your blog. And what a snarky comment Mr. Nurse made at the end!

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  4. thanks to everyone for your comments, and for reading my blog. i really appreciate your support!

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